Tag: Social media

I read a great thread the other day on Twitter by author Leigh Bardugo about how, as authors, we tend to perpetuate the myth of glamour and success that surrounds the magical business of getting published. Take it away Leigh! It’s time to talk about success and ambition. Let me be clear: Everyone has their… Continue reading White Lies

As most of you will not have noticed at all, because you have your own lives, I’ve been taking a bit of a break from social media. And it has been good. While most writers talk about taking a break from writing, I’m talking about a break from being ‘visible’, ‘out there’ and ‘switched on’. … Continue reading A Writer’s Holiday

In a recent article for Women Writers, Women’s Books, I wrote about the ubiquitous ‘author profile’ and whether or not this has any bearing on your readership. I follow lots of authors on Twitter and while a lot of successful authors have a devil-may-care attitude to what they share, others are quite guarded and even… Continue reading To Share Or Not To Share?

The other day I read a tweet about preparing for festival season. I assumed that it was related to Electric Picnic or Glastonbury, advising us to get our ‘festival on’ by donning the obligatory uniform of wellies, trilby and cut off shorts. But imagine my surprise, dear reader, when I realised the tweet was referring… Continue reading A Party Of One

Great Expectations has to be my favourite Dickens novel – probably because I studied it at school and found an instant affinity with Pip. He started out quite happy with his lot (which wasn’t much) but he had a fierce ally in Joe, his older sister’s husband, and aspired to become a blacksmith just like… Continue reading Great Expectations -vs- Simple Things

Are you addicted to Social Media? Could you give it up for a week? That was the premise of an interesting documentary I watched recently on TV3 Ireland called Screen Slaves. It’s no surprise that people have become addicted to their online lives – everything is online nowadays, so what’s the problem? Like many addictions,… Continue reading #ScreenSlaves

It’s a very exciting time here at ‘The Cross of Santiago’ HQ (that’s the title of my novel… keep up!). The cover is nearing completion, my final edit is almost at an end (only four more chapters to over-analyse) and so it’s off to Mr. Kindle and Mrs. Smashwords with my manuscript so they can… Continue reading 101 Self Publishing Questions